06 March 2005

AutoCAD 2006 - Dynamic Blocks and Display Enhancements

There are so many nice new features and enhancements in AutoCAD 2006. I wanted to mention the Dynamic Blocks as that feature has generated allot of great feedback as well as "oohs and ahhhs" when shown and tested by customers. While they do not do everything and are only 2D currently, this is the first incarnation of the Dynamic Blocks and based on customer feedback we will determine the next steps.

You add parameters to a dynamic block definition in the Block Editor. In the Block Editor, parameters have an appearance similar to dimensions. Parameters define custom properties for the block. Parameters also specify positions, distances, and angles for geometry in the block reference. When you add a parameter to a dynamic block definition, the parameter defines one or more custom properties for the block.

For example, when you add a rotation parameter to a dynamic block definition, the rotation parameter defines an Angle property for the block reference. So, if you have a block of a chair in your drawing, and you want to be able to rotate the block’s position as you edit, the parameter defines the axis whereby the block can be rotated.

One of the common questions from customers when shown Dynamic Blocks changing visibility states is about the attributes. So if I have a Dynamic Block with a 150# 12" diameter weld neck flange and I change it to a 300# 6" slip-on flange, the attributes change accordingly.

You can use the Attribute Extraction Wizard which has been greatly enhanced to create a table with the block attributes and when the associated blocks change, the attributes and table data do as well. If you copied one block and pasted 5 more it would in the table reflect the new count of that block. There is even a update balloon notification when the blocks have changed requiring a update of the table.

An example of the changes to the Dynamic Blocks and updating the attributes and table.

The Dynamic Block beams with attributes in a table created by the updated Extract Attributes Wizard.

Changing the visibility state of a Dynamic Block. In this case the visibility state is using a lookup table of my pre-defined beam sizes. The lookup table changes the geometry based on the lookup table data I created.

In the new Block Editor you can now see how the beam is defined with actions.

Here is the lookup table showing the settings I created to drive the different size of beams.

In this image you can see the table updated after I changed the size of one beam and then copied another.